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HORROR/SCl-Fl THE MIST (15) 126min «u
After The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, writer/director Frank Darabont continues his one-man championing of the Stephen King estate with an
adaptation of novella The Mist. After a thunderstorm in an isolated rural community. graphic artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) heads down to his local supermarket, only to join a cross-section of the town's other inhabitants hemmed
indoors by a mysterious mist.
At its heart The Mist is pure B Movie, more pulp fiction than big budget sci-fi thriller, but Darabont imbues everything with such genuine gravity that it’s difficult not to be swept along. Even the stock characters of the townspeople are played with a knowing veracity. which develops them well beyond stereotypes. particularly Marcia Gay Harden's religious nut Mrs Carmody. and Jane continues his run of solid. empathetic leading man performances.
The Mist's allegory for small town society aspires to represent today's political climate much as Invasion of the Body Snatchers did in 1956, and a brief explanation of the origins of The Mist's new inhabitants by a couple of half-mad government soldiers sharpens the community-fear metaphor nicely.
But the film's main distinguishing feature is the ending; Darabont affixes a Surprising twist to the end of the film, which. as with Stanley Kubrick's embroidering of The Shining's conclusion, alters the original author's intention significantly. Like The Mist as a whole. it‘s one more indication of Darabont's ability to infuse B-movie cliches with A-Grade imagination. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 4 Jul.
NEW PRINT, ROMANCE JULES ET JIM (PG) 105min 00.00
French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut's third film, made in 1962. was undoubtedly his masterpiece. Set in the 1910s and 20s it is the story of a freewheeling love triangle between alpha female Catherine (Jeanne Moreau). Austrian Jules (Oskar Werner) and Frenchman Jim (Henri Serre). As far as the boys are concerned their old friend Catherine is mad, bad and wonderful to know. Life without her is simply not worth living. Catherine marries Jules who quickly realises that sexually or emotionally he cannot hold this independent. modern and schiZOphrenically neurotic woman on his own so encourages Jim's interest in her. Cinema's greatest menage a trois falls in to place against a background of war and the painful grind of history.
Released on a lovely new print. Truffaut's film still speaks to a contemporary consciousness. It's a film about the coming of change in sexual freedom and antiquated institutions that controlled the educated masses (the so called Summer of Love and May 68 lay in the not too distant future).
Truffaut. here shows a lightness of touch that was later to desert him. There's a breeziness and subtlety to the Godardian overlaps and Jean Vigo-like leaps in continuity. Truffaut is having fun and so are we. (Paul Dale) I GFT, Glasgow from Wed 9 —Sun 73 Jul and Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh from Sun 73.
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SUPERHERO/COMEDY HANCOCK (12A) 91 min 000
The writers and director of Hancock take a hyper- powered leaf out of the Mystery Men and Return of Captain Invincible school of heroism with Hancock. Will Smith plays a nihilistic superhero who has fallen out of favour with the public.
With this scenario the biggest danger facing Hancock is that it fails to rise above the status of one-joke film and that certainly seems to be its fate in the opening scenes, in which the anti-hero causes $9 million worth of building damage while attempting to prevent a crime. Amazingly, though, Hancock is then rescued (both as a character and as a film) by the most unlikely source - PR executive with a heart of gold Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), who believes he can turn Hancock’s public image from zero to hero.
It’s a set up that allows the best to be brought out in both actors. Bateman (Smoking Aces, Love Stinks), whose name is usually mud when it comes to appearing in good movies, brings out the best in Smith the actor and the action becomes surprisingly fresh and funny. Director Peter The Kingdom Berg does a sterling job in balancing the requirements for Hollywood summer blockbusters to give a bang for their buck and a director’s desire for good camera work and an interesting story arc. Berg also controls the secondary storyline concerning Hancock’s near biblical attraction to Bateman’s fabulous wife Mary (the chameleon~|ike Charlize Theron) with distracting subtlety. Theron is photographed in close-up and hand- held in the style of the French New Wave. Both Smith and Berg deserve plaudits for their attempts to subvert a tired genre with this superhero film that dares to be that little bit different. (Kaleem Aftab)
I Out now on general release.
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